


Grounding

by starwalker42



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s02e24 Our Town, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma, rated T just in case
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26423998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starwalker42/pseuds/starwalker42
Summary: After the traumatic events in Dudley, Scully is overwhelmed by everything that's happened to her over the past few months. Mulder is there to help.Written for Baroness_Blixen in the X Files Episode Fanfic Exchange
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 16
Kudos: 72
Collections: X-Files Episode Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	Grounding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Baroness_Blixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/gifts).



> This (hopefully!) fills the great prompt I had which was 'The events of the episode aka Scully being kidnapped and almost killed again cause her to have a mental breakdown. How does she deal with breaking down? What does Mulder do?' You're a lovely person and a great writer so I was so happy to write for you, Anika! I really hope you enjoy.

They didn’t stay in Dudley for long.

With the townsfolk scattered into the night, Chaco’s body nowhere to be found, and one dead sheriff on their hands, Mulder had decided to call for backup in the form of state police and the local FBI- which didn’t go down well in the middle of the night. Scully could only imagine that a story about a cannibalistic cult and a chicken processing plant wouldn’t make them any friends, either.

Mulder had left her in the passenger seat when the reinforcements arrived, but within five minutes was back in the car.

“State police are taking charge, they’re going to report to the Department of Agriculture tomorrow.” He turned on the engine. “You ready to get out of here?”

She’d just nodded.

After a brief stop at the motel to collect their things, Mulder had kept on driving until they reached the outskirts of Little Rock. Now, when he wakes Scully from her fitful sleep, the sky is just beginning to brighten.

“Next flight out is this evening.” He helps her out of the car, and gestures behind him to a motel that had definitely seen better days. “I know it’s not the Hilton, but I’ve got us rooms, and we could use a rest.”

The room is definitely not the worst she’d been in, but it comes close. The whole place stinks of cigarette smoke and mould, and there is a stain running along the length of the ceiling. Her room in Dudley had been a lot nicer, but the cosmetic issues here seem worth putting up with if it means avoiding the threat of a beheading. Besides, as she’s happy to find, the bed is clean enough. She wants to do nothing more than climb under the covers and sleep until early afternoon, hopefully eradicating all memory of Dudley and its residents from her mind. She dumps her bag on the floor and kicks off her shoes, but as she removes her coat she catches a whiff of bonfire smoke, and-

_-she’s on the ground and she can’t see and she can smell blood in the air, on the ground below her, on the metal clamped around her head, and all she can hear is the crackling of firewood and the voice of a presumed crazy man talking about fire demons and not getting to heaven, and then she’s apologising to her parents and her brothers and sister and Mulder because she’s never going to see them again, and she can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t-_

-she comes back to herself as she bends double over the toilet bowl, feeling her stomach churn and hot tears pricking behind her eyes.

Her hair smells like smoke and her clothes do, too.

Swallowing down another wave of nausea, she begins to strip naked, knowing she may well never be able to wear these clothes ever again; she considers throwing them all into one of the motel’s dumpsters so they couldn’t contaminate the rest of her suitcase, before forcing herself to calm.

She needs a shower. That’s all.

She pulls the curtain back- but there’s no shower. There might have been, once, but it’s long been removed or torn out of the wall. Instead, there’s only a bath, which is very firmly not an option.

Well, there goes any hope of getting clean.

She washes her face in the sink as best she can, and splashes some water over herself, knowing it won’t do much good. Now she’s aware of it, the smell is unavoidable, thick and musty at the back of her throat, and every time it pushes forward she feels her chest constrict and her mind revert back to panic mode. She already knows that she’s not going to be able to sleep again.

She changes into her pyjamas anyway- ones she doesn’t mind throwing away if she can’t get the smell out once back home- leaving her old clothes in the bathroom. She’ll throw them out later, and if she forgets, at least it’ll give the cleaning staff something to do. If this place has cleaning staff.

When she flicks the light on, it burns her eyes. The lampshade for the ceiling bulb is torn so badly that it doesn’t do its job, and the white walls of the room only serve to intensify the glare. She does not want to deal with bright lights right now. She turns it off.

The sun hasn’t risen yet, but there’s a light outside in the parking lot that will probably be enough for her to read with, if she opens the blinds. There’s a new issue of JAMA in her bag that she hasn’t had a chance to read yet, but any mention of blood and bone and meat might make her sick. Instead she pulls a battered paperback of _Moby Dick_ from her suitcase- not the copy her father left to her, but her travel copy- and places it on the bed before heading to the window.

She pulls open the blinds- and there’s a figure right outside, silhouetted against the dawn sky. She distantly hears herself gasp in shock, but then-

- _it’s him, he’s found her, she’s going to be taken again, gagged and bound and tossed into the trunk, into the darkness, and no one will find her until it’s too late and then she’ll be there again, the bright place, with the shadows around her and the pain, and she’s going to die, she’s going to die, oh god, she doesn’t want to die, not yet, not before-_

“Scully!”

She can’t remember closing her eyes, but she must’ve because now she forces them open, only to flinch again because it’s too bright, and there’s someone touching her, there’s someone in front of her and she can’t move, she can’t-

“ _Scully_!”

A sob escapes her lips at the voice- it’s too loud and she wants to get away from it all, from the noise and the light. There’s something holding her arms and she can’t draw back, can’t thrash out, can’t hide.

“Please,” she whimpers, and she knows they’ll laugh at her, at a special agent for the FBI begging for her life, but it’s all she can do. “Please don’t.”

“It’s me,” the voice softens, and the grip on her arms lessens. “Scully, it’s me.”

_Mulder?_

“Take some deep breaths. Breathe nice and slow.”

“Mulder?” The word trembles on her lips as she gasps for air.

“I’m here.” It’s Mulder’s voice. It’s definitely Mulder’s voice. But that doesn’t mean it’s him, does it? _Oh god, oh god, oh god_ -

“ _Scully_. Open your eyes, look at me.”

“It’s- it’s too bright.”

“Okay.” He squeezes her hand. “I’m going to turn the light off, but I’m right here.”

She hears the click of light switch and opens her eyes as Mulder- and it _is_ Mulder, she knows that now, she knows it the moment she meets his gaze- kneels down in front of her. The carpet is hard underneath her, and the wall she’s leaning against is cold through the fabric of her pyjamas, but the thing that makes a chill run down her spine is that she doesn’t remember how she got here. Did she fall? Or had she got on the floor herself to try and defend against an imaginary attacker?

The one who might be outside right now. The one who’s going to take her back to that place and leave her stranded and alone…

“Scully.” Mulder reaches out, but his hand stops just before touching her. “Breathe. Don’t think. Just breathe with me.”

His eyes lock onto hers in the half-light as he exaggerates his breaths, taking long deep inhales before blowing out on the exhale. Scully forces herself to watch his chest rise and fall, and to copy the movement herself. The vice grip on her heart and lungs begins to lessen, and the tremble in her breath slowly stabilises. Finally, she manages to talk again.

“There was… there was someone outside. When I opened the blinds.”

This time Mulder’s hand does touch her, resting lightly on her shoulder. He pushes himself up and peers out of the window, and without thinking Scully moves her hand to rest over his. In her mind’s eye she sees the glass shatter, sees a hand reaching in, feels hot breath on her neck and a vice grip on her waist-

“There’s a kid outside having a smoke.” Mulder’s voice snaps her back to the present as he crouches in front of her again. “Did he do something to you?”

“No. No. I… I thought he was someone else.”

She knows Mulder doesn’t completely believe her when she sees the fierce protectiveness in his eyes. It occurs to her suddenly that Mulder would probably arrest the teenager if she asked him to, no questions asked. Hell, he’d probably shoot the guy if she asked. The thought makes her feel sick.

“Can you draw the blinds?” She asks instead, pulling herself up to sit on the edge of the bed.

As he does so, she notices the adjoining door to his room is flung right open, probably with enough force to dent the plaster with the door handle. He catches her looking.

“You were screaming,” he says quietly. “When I came in here you were on the floor, covering your face, and I thought you’d been shot.”

He leaves the obvious unsaid, doesn’t bother to mention that she’s not been injured or ask why she was shouting in the first place. Scully can’t decide if she’s glad or not.

“Thank you,” she exhales instead, unable to meet his eyes.

He touches her arm again. “Breathing like that helps your body to slow down. It helps you to snap out of fight or flight mode and come back to the present. My psychiatrist-”

No no no. Not that word. She doesn’t want to go to a shrink and have to explain everything, have to sit and feel the judgement of a stranger as she explains that she can’t do things she once loved, can’t even do the things normal people take for granted. They don’t understand. No one understands. They’ve not been taken away and tortured and threatened, or lost their memories of everything that happened to them. They don’t know what it’s like to have death breathing down your neck and no way of fighting back.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.” She glances up now to look at him, and sees his mouth set in a hard line. “That was a panic attack. I think I’d know.”

“Goddamnit Mulder, I didn’t ask you to psychoanalyse me!” Her voice cracks a little on the last word, and she squeezes her fist to stop her tears from escaping. “I’m just tired, I want to go to bed.”

“I think we both know that’s impossible.”

The buried concern and tenderness in his voice makes her want to swear, want to shout at him, want to hit him because he doesn’t understand and he’s an asshole for suggesting he might. But the worst part is that it makes her want to cry as well, and the only place she wants to do that right now is in Mulder’s arms.

The bed dips as he sits next to her, but he doesn’t say anything else, just waits. It’s that, the unspoken vow to stay by her side, that makes the tears start. She doesn’t allow herself to cry anymore; she’s got to be strong, can’t let anyone see that side of her, because they’ll use it against her, the fear and worry and pain. She knows her mother thinks there was something wrong when she didn’t cry at her father’s funeral, but she no longer feels safe shedding tears in public, not even in front of her own family. She refuses to be that person who asks for help or admits she’s struggling. She refuses to show weakness.

But with Mulder it’s different.

All he does is sit and wait. But that’s all he needs to do. He isn’t asking questions, isn’t trying to tell her it’s okay, isn’t asking her to calm down. He’s just sitting and waiting. As the sobs begin to shake her body, he moves his hand to rest on her thigh, and that touch is all the permission she needs. She turns to him and buries her face in his chest as his arms wrap around her. He still doesn’t talk, but he doesn’t need to- the warmth of his body and the security of his arms is all she needs right now.

When the wave of emotion finally ebbs and the tears begin to dry, Mulder’s arms are still wrapped tightly around her. His heartbeat thrums steadily in her ear as her body moves with his on every breath in and out. It strikes her how close they are, how strangely personal this would feel with anyone else, but how right it feels with him. It’s that feeling of rightness that makes her start to talk, still nestled against him.

“I’m so tired of everything else controlling my life,” she starts. “I want to be able to do everything I used to, but I can’t. And I hate it.”

His hand rubs her back soothingly. “You don’t like the light.”

“All I can remember of when they took me away… it was so bright. So I don’t like it. But I… I get scared of the dark too, and whenever I’m in my apartment at night I can’t relax unless I check all the doors and windows. Sometimes I can’t sleep, because I hear a noise, or there’s a shadow in the corner. I can’t walk past people without thinking about what would happen if they tried to hurt me. It was Chaco who attacked me earlier. And when I woke up I was in his trunk, and I was tied up and gagged and I knew I needed to fight back but I couldn’t. I just… I couldn’t move, I couldn’t get him out of my mind.”

“Barry.” Mulder states rather than asks.

She nods into his chest. “It’s like I was there again. And every time something new happens, it adds something to the list. I got here, and all it took was the smell of the smoke on me, but even that made me panic. So I wanted to have a shower, but there’s only a bath.” She manages a sad, watery smile as she pulls back to look up at him. “And I can’t have baths anymore.”

Mulder nods in understanding and offers her a slight regretful smile in return. “I’d offer my room, but the last occupant appears to have emptied their guts into the bathtub.”

“It’s okay.” Scully squeezes his arm in silent thanks. “I just wish I could do it without freaking out.”

He glances over his shoulder at the bathroom door, then notices the book on the bed. After all their time working together, Scully recognises the look in his eyes. Mulder has a plan.

Sure enough, when he glances back at her, he’s got a smile on his face.

“Maybe I can help with that.”

She decides to indulge him. “Go on.”

He explains his idea.

And, for once, she finds herself not immediately dismissing it.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 is on its way, hopefully this week, but I'm moving back to university so I don't want to promise anything, especially because I want to give it all the time it deserves. Thank you for reading!


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